Couple of newbie questions

Couple of newbie questions

I´ve finally got into GalCiv II, started playing my first game last week. I started in Normal difficulty as the Terrans, and so far I´m doing pretty good, I think (read several threads here giving advice about the colony rush, planets improvements, etc, and also the wiki quite extensively, which helped a lot).

Ok, so right now I´m in my first war, against the Drengin. I have ships which are considerably more advanced than theirs, so it´s going good for now. However, I have a couple of questions which I hope some of you more experienced players can help me with.

First of all, do you know the base repair rate for ships? I read in the wiki that the game manual doesn´t give any value for this, it just mentions how to increase it. But maybe after several games you have some idea about it? I´ve been taking my highly damaged ships to my planets for them to repair more quickly, but it´d be nice to know how long it will take (I don´t have any bonus yet, although I´m thinking about getting Micro Repair Bots).

Second, something strange happened when the war started. I have alliances with both the Altarians and the Torians, but neither of them declared war on the Drengin when I declared war on them. A couple of turns into the war I decided to get the Altarians into the war with a little bribe, and then the Torians immediately joined saying they were honoring the alliance. Is this working as intended or something went wrong here?

Third, and finally: how strong does a fleet have to be to take on a starbase with the very first defense and attack modules? I tried attacking a resource mining starbase with a fleet (3 medium ships, with 25-30 HP, two mass drivers and two armor points each). I knew my fleet would be destroyed , but I hoped to inflict more damage than merely 10 HP.

Thanks in advance for any reply I might get!

PS: This is a great game, it feels like the lovechild of Civ IV and MOO II, both listed amongst my favourite games of all time!

Micro Repair Bots will certainly help, as will moving damaged ships into planetary orbit. And, IIRC, you can put points into repair capabilities when you set up your civ at the start of the game.

As to coded repair rates, maybe the more informed here can answer that....I don't know the answer.

The whole alliance thing is broken, IMHO. For example: Civ A is allied to Civ B and to Civ C; Civ B declares war on Civ C but Civ A doesn't have to take sides...can remain out of the conflict, and still be allied to both. That isn't how things work in the realm of diplomacy. Civ A should either have to take one side or the other, or break both alliances and become neutral with both.

As to attacking starbases, bear in mind what form the starbase attack takes. Any weapon it's equipped with that your fleet has defenses for (eg. beam attk. vs. shield def.) can be deflected if your defense is high enough. But...if the attack is missile or gun (using the above example) you have no counter and will suffer higher damage. The reverse holds true as well (what you are attacking with vs. what the starbase defenses are). The same principal holds true for fleet vs. fleet.

One thing about the starbases bit, though. I may be mistaken, but I think that the first defense and attack modules give starbases 2 points in every defense and attack types. Isn´t it that way?

Battle stations one gives one attack point to each category for a total of three (1/1/1) Mass driver Missile and Beam

Protection values are 1/1/1

I believe combat is resolved by round so how much you need to kill is directly proportional to how many rounds you can kill it in basically high damage flees do the trick becuase a 6 damage fleet would need nearly 10 rounds of combat to kill a starbase much more when you consider protection fields and that star base is doing three damage per round and it has protection against what you are firing.

There are no modules that add those values to the defenses of starbases.

There are only two sorts of modules (not counting racial-specific ones) that increase the defenses of the starbase. Invulnerability Bloom, Electro-Magnetic Surge, and Overlord Armor from near the end of the defense tech tree, and the modules from the Starbase Fortifications line. Battle Stations Two to Four are supposed to increase the defenses too, but that doesn't work, because a module can have only one type of ability.

The Starbase Fortifications modules are the only ones that make sense in the scenario of the OP. That would be three modules (six, if you also count the attack modules), each increases the defense (or damage) in one category by five. Depending on which of the modules are used in case of the OP's starbase, the damage and defense values could be anywhere between 1/1/1, 5/0/0 and 6/6/6, 5/5/5. In the best case scenario, it is tough, but doable. While in the worst case scenario, I'd be surprised if you did any damage at all.

As Regentofsparta said, combat is turn-based. The attacker shoots firsts, then the defender strikes back, including all destroyed ships (unless the attacker is a Super Warrior, but that counts only for the first round).The actual combat-mechanics are little bit more complicated. The values for damage and defense are rolled between zero and the max value. For weapons, the max value is pretty straight forward. Just take a look at what the ship-stats say.For defenses, it depends on if they are on-type or off-type. If they are on-type (e.g., armor against mass drivers), then it is just as the stats say. If they are off-type (e.g., shields against mass drivers), then the square root of the regular max value gets used (I think it then gets rounded up, but am not sure). After that, it gets even more complicated, because the max value for defenses gets reduced, the more damage is dealt.For example, let's take three of the OP's ships against another one with the same values. Ship Nr. 1 rolls a one in damage, while the enemy ship rolls a two for defense. The enemy ship doesn't take any damage, but the max value for defense gets reduced by one, and is now at one. Ship Nr. 2 rolls a two for damage, while the enemy ship rolls a zero for defense. The enemy ship has now lost two HP, and the defense strength has been reduced to zero. Ship Nr. 3 rolls a one for damage, and automatically applies them to the enemy ships, because it has no defenses anymore. Now, the enemy ships rolls a two for damage, while Ship Nr. 1 rolls a one for defense. Ship Nr. 1 looses one HP, and the max value for defense gets reduced by two points. After that, the second turn of combat begins, and the defenses for all ships are back at full strength.In case of a stalemate (all ships from both sides got destroyed), there are two possible outcomes. If one side has a ship with a bigger size than the other one, then that side wins, with this ship surviving (but with only one HP remaining). However, if neither side has a bigger ship, then the attacker wins, with the most advanced ship surviving (also with only one HP). I'm not exactly sure what "most advanced" means in that case. Either highest tech or highest level, I guess.There also are two more things to consider. For one, having multiple weapons on board is very useful. For example, if you have six weapons on board, you could, in theory, destroy up to six enemy ships, as long as each weapon deals enough damage. The other thing is Luck. The Luck ability determines the minimum value for your damage and defense rolls. For example, if you have a Luck ability of 25%, you use 25% of the max value of your weapons and defenses as minimum, instead of zero. That is pretty much the only known bonus Luck provides, as far as I know.

I'm not an expert regarding combat, so I probably forgot something, or mixed something up, but I hope that was useful to you.

Ah ok I must have been reading the military modules thing then, (does not apply to resource star bases?) I don't really use things like protection fields anyway. Sorry about that.

also that would make luck a very highly valuable skill then!

Seeing as this is a newbie thread I have a question what: determines how many shots are taken in a round? the reason I ask is I frequently have 5 shots at an enemy fleet when I have three ships and each one has at least three weapons

Edit regarding alliances Gedierond this only applies if YOU are attacked not going out and attacking others I have only been playing a few weeks but I already have an example four civs including me remained on a map: I was allied with two of them (the Drengin and Thalian and I declared on the Terrans Next turn they convinced my two allies to go to war with each other, and they did not declare on the Terrans....

But thats not the best part noooo the Thalans decided to supply military arms to the Terrans in the form of their warships! so I decided to supply military aid to the Drengin in their effort purely out of spite

I was torn between being annoyed at the AI and quite impressed at a seriously duplicitous move by the Thalans I mean how backhanded can you get?

Seeing as this is a newbie thread I have a question what: determines how many shots are taken in a round? the reason I ask is I frequently have 5 shots at an enemy fleet when I have three ships and each one has at least three weapons

The amount and strength of the weapons onboard your ships, and how much damage is needed to destroy the enemy ships.For example, if an enemy ship is badly damaged, and your first ship can destroy it with only a shot from one of it's weapons, it will then be able to use it's other two weapons to attack the next target. Your second ship will then have an easier time to destroy that one, allowing it to use most of it's weapons to attack yet another enemy vessel, and so on.

Regarding the values of defense and attack for the starbase I mentioned, I should have also mentioned that I´m using the APT mod in its "fix only" version. I think it doesn´t change any value for modules, but I may be mistaken. Regardless, I understand now that bigger fleets are needed, and even better if they have more than one weapon type.

I´m actually now in my second game, again as the Terrans but in a bigger galaxy and with a higher difficulty (went from Normal to Tough). Gotta say, the difference in AI competitiveness is remarkable with the higher difficulty. In Normal I had no trouble at all in remaining the most powerful and advanced civ, but now I´m severely outclassed by the Torians, the Thalans and the Drengin, and at the same level with the rest. I also had very bad luck regarding planets, with only a couple class 5 habitable planets near my starting position. Buy, hey, that makes it more interesting, doesn´t it?

Since I still have some noob questions, I might as well use the same thread.

It´s just one question though. When I take, for instance, a Korath world as the Terrans, all the race-specific buildings disappear. If I had traded Slave Pits with them before the war, would I had been able to keep those buildings? Or race-specific buildings are completely off-limits for other races?

And yes, uphill struggles are so much more glorious than games where you're in the lead from the get-go.

I hear you! This second game is getting much more fun that the first one! Might as well tell a bit of what has been going on...

Shortly after what I told above I started falling behind badly, due to having few colonies, mainly (I could only colonize 3 planets, two class 5 and one class 8, with a medium-sized galaxy... at least I converted Mars quite quickly, after the Torians had colonized it!). So I built some ships, to scare possible attackers off for the time being, and focused on extreme planets colonization research. I had found a couple of toxic planets (class 11 and 12) near my influence zone, so I wanted to get them fast.

Meanwhile, the Drengin started getting ahead of everyone else in research, and particularly in military. Shortly after, they began to threaten me to give them money (as if!!!), so I "convinced" the Torians and the Thalan to attack them (who had the second and third strongest fleets, respectively). That war would last quite a long time, so I could shake the Drengin off my back.

However, I knew that I had to start building my own fleet up, since I could see the Korath (one of my nearest neighbours) where getting antsy, and my military rating was about half of theirs. Having colonised the toxic planets in the meantime, I started researching Logistics and Miniaturization, to complement the nice bunch of military techs I had recently traded from the Snathi (don´t know if it was because the Thalan had recently declared war on them and they were desperate, but I could get up to Stinger IV, Deflector III and Point Defense from them, without giving to many of my techs in exchange).

The Korath, however, didn´t declare war on me, but on my allies the Arceans. I figured keeping the alliance going on would be beneficial, so I answered the call. However, my fleet wasn´t still up to the Korath´s... I needed another manufacturing planet, fast. So, I went for Advanced Toxic Extractor as soon as I could, to put one of my new toxic planets to build top-of-the-line ships (medium hull, 3 missiles, 2 lasers, 3 point defense, 2 armor, the best I could get with my techs).

With the new ships coming from Hestia III (that planet was a life savior), and help from a military starbase conveniently placed in the Terran-Korath border, I could defeat the Korath fleets, picking them one by one. Thankfully, they didn´t have medium hulls... that surely helped a lot.

Shortly after, I got Planetary Invasion from the Arceans, and started building my transports. I managed to take a couple of Korath planets, but I had a bit of a problem: I understimated the AI. When the war with the Korath began, I bribed the Thalan to attack them as well, to see if a distraction could buy me time to build my fleet up. The Thalan, however, were still at war with the Drengin, so I didn´t see them participate much in the Korath war. So I went on destroying fleets and planetary defenses. Then, suddenly, Thalan transports start to show up! They managed to take the Korath capital and a couple more planets, while I took another couple of planets. I lost some nice opportunities there... My bad, I know. In the end, the Korath surrendered to the Thalan, so they now have, by far, the largest amount of planets and influence.

Even though the Thalan took some of my conquests, the war left me in a much better position than before. My military rating is close to the top players, my economy has improved a lot, and my tech rating is quite good. The Torians and the Drengin are still at it, while the Thalan dropped from that war. Probably, the civ which ended up being the most benefited from these conflicts were the Korx, who stayed mostly passive during this time, but now have the highest military rating of all, though followed closely by the rest, and a tech rating that went through the roof!

Wow, that ended up much longer that I thought! Maybe I could post it in a different thread, as a mini-AAR, lol!

Once you have mustered an invasion fleet, you might use a spy to examine all your potential targets during your approach. The you can prioritize which to invade first, etc. For example, if you spot that one planet has a civ-wide soldier bonus facility (TirQuan Training, or something), then take that one first! Also, any planets with things like Eco Capital or logistics or miniaturization buildings should be among the top targets. Capturing them not only boosts your empire, but also weakens the enemy greatly.

If the AI has a counterespionage building on a planet, you cannot use the spy but you can still "see" the planet if you have taken the time to gain a high intel level on the AI empire.

One other thing, an AIs military rating may be overstated if they have built a Spin Control facility and have warships in orbit there.

Sounds like it won't be long until you're ready to go up another level in difficulty. You just need to get a bit better at the colony rush (although sometimes there is no compensating for a crappy starting position, that's when games really get interesting ). The Thalan invasion mistake is one you'll most likely never make again, which will significantly increase your gains next time. Also, try not to kill every ship your enemy has, but only those that "annoy" you (the ones that directly hinder short-term goals, say invasions in the next three turns, or "spare" ships in orbit around hostile planets that could sally forth and blow up an innocent transport of yours). As long as your enemy has a decent fleet, he'll think he might stand a chance and is less likely to surrender to someone else (or you), allowing you more time to take those juicy planets he might otherwise give away to someone else. As for invasion strategy: it can help to hit strategic planets as described above, but don't lose yourself in quests like these: it can cost you quite a bit to escort transports deep into enemy territory. I usually conquer myself a nice corridor into the enemy heartland instead (every planet that takes too long to build a warship instead builds the cheapest transport I could design), which focusses the fighting and the invading and makes it easier for me to keep my transports alive and my freshly acquired planets safe.

I´ve finished this game now, with a Technological Victory. The Korx started falling behind when the Thalan declared war on them and started to annex them slowly. I took the chance to go against the Drengin (who had defeated the Torians finally, although they surrendered to me, yay!), and my former allies the Arceans. In the end, only the Thalan and myself remained, with them holding more planets and influence, but with me winning the tech race eventually. I could have won a Diplomatic Victory earlier, but it seemed a bit cheesy to do it again with the Terrans (the diplomatic advantage can be a bit OP, IMO).

I think I´ll play a couple more game with Tough difficulty, increasing the galaxy size and trying other races.

Thanks again to all for the replies!

Edit: Any suggestion as to which race I should try would be appreciated

Korx and then go Neutral. Still a terran-like experience, but without the weird diplo-bonus and an excuse to go all evil on your ethical choices until you research Xeno Ethics. Their trade allows you to befriend civilizations relatively early (or they'll hate you for being evil), but must somehow be balanced with a good colonization rush ánd getting XenoEthics relatively soon...

If you want to really change the way you need to play: go Yor or Thalan.

(medium hull, 3 missiles, 2 lasers, 3 point defense, 2 armor, the best I could get with my techs).

just a fast tip: don't mix up different types of defences as this will greatly diminish their value.

always try to match your opponents weapons, if you go the defensiv route (is way easier to research, and will provide you with some very strong ships over time) try to outmatch the enemies attack by x2 defense. You won't lose ships at all.

if they have different weapons scrap defenses completely and go all attack.

BTW

even if you're trying to play peacefully stay at the upper top of the Military Might Ranking - because diplomatically, this is one of the best thing you can have. That will ensure that you are placeing the date for the wars. as well as you won't get threatened or bribed to pay money (if you refuse will hit your diplo)

and don't declare war for small things, usually only to conquer a complete empire. most of the time this will be your neighbours, while, distant empires can become possible allies, with some trade, a good MMR, non-aggressive behaviour (triggers "+ our historic friendship" and maybe some help when they need (when they ask for help because of war gift them a warship triggers "+ they appreciate our past help". Allying with your neighbors is somwhow difficult cause too many negative factors come to play.

and if you need to get a heand on already mined galactic resources you can fly a longrange warship to it, then gift it to the power who is currently at war, and sometimes see the base destroyed^^^^^

edit:

on the repair thingy, if your ship/fleet fastly needs its HP restored just upgrade it to itself, in your own space it will be full HP next turn.

When I have a lot of planets I sometimes cannot remember where one is and have to hunt around the galaxy looking for the planet name among hundreds of other planets. Is there a fast way to find the location of a planet on the main screen?

Is there a fast way to find the location of a planet on the main screen?

Click on the Planet/Ship List button (or press the F1 key). This will bring up a list with all the planets and ships in the game. Search for the planet you're looking for (you can sort the list by Name), and then click on the planet icon. This will move the camera directly to the location of the planet.